Seaweed as a health booster

Linda Furiya, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, May 14, 2003

When I returned to Shanghai in early February with my newborn son I was looking forward to rejoining my husband and resuming our life in China. I never thought that two months later I'd be fleeing with my son to avoid the SARS virus.

Since I've been back in the U.S., people ask what it was like living under the threat of the incurable virus. I tell them the attitude in Shanghai was ominously relaxed, which I found all the more frightening.

In China, we don't get all the news coverage on television the way American audiences do. Many of the online editions of national newspapers are blocked, including The Chronicle. Most of what I learned about the virus was from the Web links and articles e-mailed by concerned friends and family in the United States.

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As the outbreak worsened in Hong Kong, the embassies urged their citizens to stay away from large crowds and heavily populated areas. In a city of 14 million, large crowds are unavoidable. I had no choice but to keep the baby indoors most of the time. I still ran household errands or I would have gone stir-crazy. Beneath the facade of normalcy, the thought of my husband and baby getting sick kept me awake at night.

During these stressful times, I felt the only thing I had control of was what I ate. Chocolate worked wonders on my spirit. To boost my immune system, I drank hot water spiked with apple cider vinegar and guzzled fresh carrot juice. I ate so many greens I thought shoots would sprout from my fingertips. I ate tons of my favorite wakame salad (made from cold-water seaweed) when I remembered my mother touting its health benefits to me as a child.

My family back home thought I was nuts for staying in China, but I didn't think the situation was dire just yet. That was until I called the medical clinic to schedule a baby checkup and immunizations, and was told no babies were allowed in the clinic for two weeks. They were seeing an increased number of patients with cold and flu-like symptoms. "But what if the baby gets sick?" I asked. "If it's an emergency," they said, "we can treat him in your car." Four days later, I was on a flight to San Francisco.

EASY WAKAME SALAD

Wakame is high in protein, iron and calcium. You can substitute thinly sliced daikon radish in place of the cucumbers. As a side salad, center the dressed seaweed on a layer of mixed greens.

Squeeze all the water from the wakame. Mix the wakame with the vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and cucumber slices. Add the lemon zest or sesame seeds, but not both. Allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.

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